Stateline South Australia

A Beach At Brompton? New Climate Change Warning

According to Professor Barry Brook, the new head of climate change at the University of Adelaide, that's the real estate scenario future generations face if climate change continues unabated.

We'll talk with Professor Brook in a moment. But in the immediate future climate change policy is shaping up as a major election issue, and this week both the Government and Labor made their bids to capture the policy high ground.

JOHN HOWARD: This report will make a massive contribution to the debate on climate change in Australia.

IAN HENSCHKE: The politics of climate change warmed up some more this week when the Prime Minister released a report recommending a national carbon trading scheme that would cap greenhouse gas emissions in five years time but no firm targets were announced. He's expected to discuss the report at the National Liberal Council meeting this weekend.

Meanwhile Labor announced this week it would spend $100 million on developing solar energy and hot rock or geothermal technology as part of its plan to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.

Then yesterday coincidentally the state's climate change thinker in residence released his final report.

STEPHEN SCHNEIDER: You cannot implement a complex problem like climate policy overnight. What you have to do overnight is get performance standards for air conditioners an things like that, then you have to have public-private partnerships for the gene electricity and renewables, and you have to have a carbon tax to put a price on carbon so there is a long-term incentive in the market to get out of the most polluting things and to invest more heavily in if other alternatives.

IAN HENSCHKE: The fact that the two major parties are struggling to outdo one another on climate change policy shows a massive shift in public concern bringing climate change off the back burner and into the heat of an election campaign. But some scientists say global warming is accelerating far quicker than predicted and as the sea levels are rising the goal posts my be shifting.

Barry Brooke, the first Professor of Climate Change at Adelaide University.

(To BARRY BROOKE): What makes you sure that climate change is accelerating?

BARRY BROOKE: We know for certain that greenhouse gases are accelerating in the rate of release. There has been a recent report, just come out in the last month, which has shown that the rate of increase of CO2 emissions has almost doubled in the past few years.

IAN HENSCHKE: What is it doing to the sea level rise then?

BARRY BROOKE: The rate of sea level rise has about doubled in the last decade. If that continues at that sort of rate we could be looking at catastrophic sea level rises within a century, perhaps in the order of metres rather than centimetres.

IAN HENSCHKE: At the top end, how many metres?

BARRY BROOKE: If it continues at a doubling rate of sea level rise every 10 years, then we could have up to four to eight metres of sea level rise within the century.

IAN HENSCHKE: What would South Australia look like if we had an eight metre sea level rise?

BARRY BROOKE: Well I guess I should say that that is probably not the most realistic scenario, but it may be a 10 per cent probability, which is certainly enough for concern that we should be thinking about how we can mitigate that. Now if that occurred that would clearly be catastrophic, not only for South Australia but for the global economy. So it is something we have to avoid. In South Australia it will cause major flooding of all coastal areas.

IAN HENSCHKE: So you mean Port Adelaide would be underwater, and the Adelaide plains.

BARRY BROOKE: Exactly. Most of the coastal residential areas would have to be abandoned. Indeed even with a one metre sea level rise it's been estimated that 30 per cent of Holland would have to be abandoned.

IAN HENSCHKE: What about here, though? What would happen to 30 per cent of Adelaide? Would the Virginia market garden area go underwater? What would happen?

BARRY BROOKE: There would be two things. It would gradually, incrementally, go underwater and also in times of heavy storms there would be much larger storm surges. So you get more frequent flooding. That would be the first signal.

IAN HENSCHKE: Well given what we have seen just recently with both the parties coming forward, what is the advice you would give to government?

BARRY BROOKE: They have made the right step in considering an emissions trading scheme, and that certainly needs to be implemented. You need some sort of carrot and stick approach, essentially, to encourage the development of renewable technologies that provide non-greenhouse gas polluting ways of generating power. And you need to have firm targets.

Now right now there is a proposal to have emissions trading. You need to have a long term aspirational goal, which is discussed in the new report but no specific targets are given.

But then you need to have a method by which you incrementally reduce the cap on greenhouse gases, such that over time you make a steady but deep inroad into emissions.

IAN HENSCHKE: Well this debate has been going on for more than 10 years. what are you going to advise Mike Rann in your role?

BARRY BROOKE: He needs to continue to work at ways where you can reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a short time scale, a medium time scale and a long time scale. The short time scale needs to concentrate on improvements in energy efficiency, cause that's where the immediate gains can come from.

The medium time scale is a matter of improving ways of mitigating current emissions. In the long term it is a matter of a switch over from fossil fuel technologies to renewables.

IAN HENSCHKE: What is the best renewable energy option then?

BARRY BROOKE: I don't think there is any one particular option. In Australia we have a wealth of solar power, but in South Australia we also have an abundance of geothermal power, hot rocks, especially out in the desert. Theoretically they could provide all of the power that South Australia requires if properly utilised. There are technological hurdles to overcome, but Australia certainly has a wealth of possible renewables in wind, and solar and wave power and geothermal. And you really need a mix of these to have any sort of realistic solution.